Employees Make $13 Million a Piece for Some Corporations: Paid a Pittance While Top Execs Demand More

Why is approximately 12% of the work force being blamed for American business’ financial problems?(Illustration provided by Cory M. Grenier)

By Pete Dolack
The amount of profits piled up by corporations dwarfs all reason, but the amount of money executives and speculators haul in at our expenses comes into stronger focus when we examine a different metric: Revenue per employee.

The 10 corporations that have the highest revenue per employee averaged US$5.8 million per employee. Each of these top 10, incidentally, is either a pharmaceutical or an oil and gas company. Topping the list is Phillips 66, which managed to haul in $11.5 million per employee. One suspects that the average employee sees no more than a minuscule fraction of that figure.

Examining the 100 largest corporations in the world by revenue, Expert Market, a business consultancy, ranked them by revenue per employee to see which were the most “efficient.” (It is quite possible that other, smaller corporations extract more revenue per employee.) The other oil and gas companies among the top 10 were PTT, Valero Energy, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Statoil.

Interestingly, two of these companies are government enterprises: PTT is majority-owned by the government of Thailand and Statoil is two-thirds owned by the government of Norway. So much for the idea that governments should never own enterprises; at least the profits from these companies can be used for public good. The public ought to own all energy companies considering the gigantic subsidies they receive — an estimated US$5.6 trillion per year, when environmental and health costs are added to the subsidies, foregone taxes and other expensive goodies handed out by governments.

The pharmaceutical companies among the top 10 are Amerisourcebergen Corp., Express Scrips Holding Co. and McKesson Corp. Amerisourcebergen and McKesson both distribute pharmaceuticals, and Express Scrips administers prescription drug benefits for tens of millions of health plan members. Each of these primarily operates in the United States, the only advanced-capitalist country without universal health coverage, and two also operate in Canada, where corporate pressure on the public health system is strong, in part due to its proximity to the U.S.

The pharmaceutical industry is immensely profitable in the U.S., and the industry’s layer of distribution and administration adds to the overall cost. Health care in the U.S. is designed to deliver corporate profits rather than health care, and these kinds of huge profits explain why health care costs in the U.S. are vastly higher than any other countrywhile delivering mediocre results.

Technology companies squeeze somewhat less out of their employees. Apple ranks as the technology company with the most revenue per employee, at about $1.9 million. Google ranks second at $1.2 million. But how much profit does a company need to make? Apple’s products are produced through sweatshop labor outside the U.S., mostly in China, through an army of subcontractors that dwarf the size of Apple’s direct employees.